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Kimi Räikkönen is fifth in the Formula One points chase. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Lotus' performance highlights closely fought Formula One season

August 27, 2012

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As Formula One entered its summer break following Hungarian Grand Prix on July 29, the likes of Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton stood atop the drivers' championship. No surprise there, and no shock that Red Bull Racing, McLaren and Ferrari sat at the sharp end of the constructors' title chase. However, mixed in among them is 2012's surprise: the Lotus F1 team.

Lying fifth in the drivers' championship, Kimi Räikkönen is just eight points behind Webber in second place. And while Alonso holds a handy margin, Räikkönen has closed a similar gap to Webber, in the final two races in 2007 when Räikkönen won the title for Ferrari. Meanwhile, Lotus sits third in the constructors' fight, ahead of Ferrari and just one point behind McLaren.

Lotus has yet to win, but Räikkönen and his impressive teammate Romain Grosjean (seventh in points, with three top-three finishes) have been regular podium visitors and have knocked on the door of the team's first victory. They have been competitive at all types of tracks, while just lacking the qualifying pace needed to start at the front.

Perhaps the team's form should not be a big surprise; in its former guise as the Renault factory entry, it won the championship with Alonso in 2005 and 2006. But it then lost its way, a slide that culminated in the end of full Renault support.

The team in early 2010 passed into the hands of Luxembourg-based investment group Genii Capital, which installed low-key French GP2 Series man Eric Boullier as the boss of a team that was used to the larger-than-life leadership of Benetton F1, nee Renault, chief Flavio Briatore.

Boullier and Genii steadied the ship and are extracting the full potential from an experienced engineering staff. There have been hurdles. Star driver Robert Kubica was sidelined by a rally crash prior to last season, while a bold gamble on a side-mounted exhaust layout for 2011 didn't pay off with the expected performance.

Road-car maker Group Lotus last year came on board as title sponsor, and the team became tangled in a legal fight with the “other Lotus,” run by Tony Fernandes. Matters were resolved when Fernandes switched to Caterham branding. But then Group Lotus said it could no longer afford the deal it had signed. Genii emerged with the rights to use the Lotus name in F1 until 2017 but with no actual support from the car company.

Still, things have come together on the track, simply because the E20 machine is a very good race car, operated by a very efficient team.

“There are three things I'm proud about,” says Genii Group co-owner and Lotus F1 chairman Gerard Lopez. “One is the results, getting there, or almost getting there. The second thing is getting there while having to battle all sorts of issues. It's been a bumpy road to say the least, but nevertheless, we kept the timing that we had set out. So there's a certain pride in having people tell you you're not going to do it, and still kind of be there.

“And then the third element: just tweaking the team internally, some key positions and then managing to extract the talent that was within the group. We made some strategic changes, and the good thing is it just crystallized some potential that was still sitting in that team.”

Much like Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, Boullier graduated from the lower leagues to steer a major F1 team in the right direction. He had the tricky task of convincing an organization of 500 people that he could do the job.

“There were some ups and downs,” Boullier concedes. “I think I'm quite low-profile, so they understood that I would first learn by their side. I obviously learned from them how the systems work in F1, but I never imposed any stupid ideas or any stupid system. Thanks to GP2, I have some racing experience, and in some discussions, I can suggest something different. Obviously they listen more to me now than they were listening at the beginning.”

Genii was wise to realize that the Enstone, England, factory was a strong unit, capable of taking the fight to front-runners like Ferrari and McLaren, even if it had lost its mojo in the latter years of Renault ownership.

“A lot of people were also here in the Benetton time [when Michael Schumacher won the championship in 1994 and 1995], so they went through this cycle,” says Boullier. “They know how to win, they know why they want to win again, and that's maybe one of the key secrets. They also had to learn who I am and also who is Genii. You have to pass all this, and once the trust is there, then you can build up.”

Lotus grabbed people's attention back in November when it announced its new driver signing. Räikkönen's F1 career fizzled with an uncompetitive Ferrari in 2009, and he spent a couple of years in the World Rally Championship. Few realized he was still very motivated—and at 32 years old, young enough to get back into the groove.

Räikkönen has thrived at Lotus, enjoying close relationships with people he sees as pure racers and relishing the fact that he has few distracting PR commitments.

“Yes, it was a risk to [gamble on Räikkönen],” Boullier admits. “It was a risk to bring Grosjean [who struggled with the Renault team during his first F1 go-round in 2009], but I think we were so convinced with what we wanted to do, we just went for it. I don't know if it was brave or it was stupid!

“This team has always had a top driver, and to have a name like Kimi coming, with the charisma he has, the world championship he has under his belt: That was a breath of fresh air into the company.”